A new study from Swansea University—published in Science Advances—surveyed over 5,300 people across 11 countries to figure out how much our sexual histories factor into our datability.
The takeaway is surprisingly nuanced, or at least it feels that way, considering the bar for the quality of conversations surrounding a person’s number of sexual partners is usually relatively low.
The team found that it’s not just how many people you’ve slept with that people are judging, it’s when and how fast you were doing it.
Does Your Body Count Actually Matter?
People still prefer partners with fewer notches on their belts. But if your wild phase of f**king anything that moves eventually peters out, your prospects improve.
Researchers used visual timelines to show hypothetical sexual histories with identical numbers of past partners, just arranged differently over time. The most favored among study participants was the timeline that showed people slowing their roll as they aged, signaling they’re transitioning out of their hookup era and into the next phase, where they want to settle down for longer stretches.
There is a logic to this: People, consciously or not, are looking for signs of stability, especially as they age. Lead researcher Andrew Thomas explained that we use someone’s sexual past as a way of detecting potential red flags like STIs, infidelity, ex-drama, or a general lack of relationship-readiness.
It’s not as much about prudishness as it is about determining whether a potential partner is going to harm you in some way, either emotionally by cheating on you or physically by giving you the vicious case of the clap.
Another noteworthy bit from the study regards the stigma women usually experience when it comes to their sexual histories. That age-old double standard where guys get applauded for having several partners, while women get shamed, isn’t true around the globe.
Across the surveyed countries, both men and women were judged similarly for their past partner count. Of course, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen; it’s just not as prevalent as it seems.
If you’re seeing it happen or it’s happening to you, you are, unfortunately, one of the rare exceptions, at least according to the research.
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